Abstract

Brain imaging study may indicate a dampened response to an infants cry in depressed mothers

Author(s): News & Views

New findings, published in the journal of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, have begun to uncover some of the differences in brain activity between depressed mothers and nondepressed mothers. The study in question utilized functional MRI to view differences in brain activity in 22 women (11 with depressive symptoms and 11 with no recorded history of depression) in response to a sound played to them in the scanner. The mothers were played one of three sounds, the cry of their own child, a cry of an unknown child or a control sound.